


What's Left to Linger When the Shine Fades Away

by Scented_Candles



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 03:58:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10235384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scented_Candles/pseuds/Scented_Candles
Summary: Brienne has been engaged to Jaime since she was a child. She is raised for a time amongst the lions, before the Tyrells of Highgarden take her into their fold. Almost a decade later and Jaime doesn't recognize his bride except for those blue eyes, clear as the sky and wide as the world."Beauty is a concept my dear and you really are far too singular for you own good aren't you?" Olenna Tyrell says as she looks at the awkward young girl in front of her, angry and coltish, with defiant eyes. "You shouldn't slouch about so as though asking pardon for your existence. Stand proud and tall. Always think that they're the ones who need to earn your approval, not the other way around."





	

Part One: 

The first time he sees her, she is but a child, and promised to him already. His father had sent him to Tarth, much to his consternation and amid protestations, to meet the girl he’d been forcibly betrothed to. 

He’d raged and rallied against spending the summer there when he had plans – god he’ll miss Cersei! His golden twin had not been at all happy to hear the news of his leave-taking, and especially the reason behind it – but no one ever really said no to Tywin Lannister and Jaime found himself boarding a plane and then a seaplane and landing on Tarth with his bags and a chip on his shoulder.

But then he’d met his bride he’d seen the loneliness in her eyes then, despite the bravado she cloaked herself with, her tomboyish ways, all of six and running around all the time and wielding a fake plastic sword, proclaiming herself to be a knight. 

She was not a pretty child. Her looks did not invite adults to stop and coo at her, like they had been wont to do when he and his sister had been Brianne’s age. She was gangly and awkward looking, all legs and arms, with her straw colored hair forever getting tangled and her freckles standing out on her pale moon skin like too much cinnamon spilled on milk. Still, her eyes were round and blue and beautiful and Jaime thought that she was a stellar child. She'd lost her mother too, at a young age, just like he did. Jaime felt some sort of kinship. 

She carried herself with the deep-rooted assurance of one who knew she was loved. It shone even in her shiest, most awkward moments. It was easy to see that the Evenstar of Evenfall Hall loved his daughter. However, even that love couldn’t quite make up for the man’s predilection to taking nubile young things to his bed, allowing them to stay for a spell or two, inadvertently giving them access to his daughter. It had taken two days into Jaime’s first visit to Tarth to ascertain that not all these women were kind to his young betrothed.

“She’s new,” Brianne has whispered to him once, looking over at the lushly curved woman by Selwyn Tarth’s side. “She’s the longest one that’s stayed though. She told me she’d give my father better children to be proud of. When are we going to get married so you can bring me to your home?”

She was a happy child, despite everything. She had pets to play with in the Evenfall estate. Horses and cats and dogs but she had no mother and no siblings and their family seat was located in a gorgeous but isolated island and Jaime didn’t have to guess how it was to live surrounded by servants and lacking children one's own age to play with. Jaime had always had Cersei but Tyrion was in the same predicament and Jaime always made time for his little brother. In his first summer in Tarth, Jaime made sure to make time for his little bride as well. 

It was easy to like her, after the initial annoyance of having the little girl bash him in the knee with her sword and tell him she’d never yield to someone unworthy. Big words for a little wench he’d retorted and she’d laughed at him, giggling like the child she was, all snort and snot and a bit of cackle, telling him she was no wench, laughing when he insisted that she was. 

Later on, as the summer drew to a close, the child confessed to him that she wanted to please him. She told him that she’d try to make him happy, as much as her mother had made her father happy before she died. She wanted a family. She promised to be strong so that she wouldn’t leave him alone in the world with their children. All this from a girl of six, it had baffled him then and amused him somewhat and it had felt like nothing to nod solemnly and promise himself to her in turn. That he would be fateful and true, like the knights she so obviously admired, the stories of which populated the books in the tiny library she had in her room. 

Tyrion would like her, he’d thought.

He had been sixteen then and he’d had no intention of ever really being true to the promises he’d made his child bride who knew nothing of the world outside her gorgeous blue island of Tarth. 

They were a good family, his father had said. The Tarths were of ancient and noble blood and reasonably wealthy despite not being of the same ranks as the Lannisters. It was later that Jaime would find out from Selwyn that his mother and Brianne's were like sisters, were the best of friends, and that they had dreamed of their children being married and becoming truly one family. It made Jaime think of what he’d heard other people say about his father, that any goodness in him had died along with his wife. 

The third summer Jaime spent in Tarth was brief. He went with his father who made arrangements with Selwyn’s barristers and his steward regarding the guardianship of Brienne and the assets her father had left her. Selwyn had perished in a car accident in Prague while out with one of his young mistresses. He'd never allowed Brianne to leave the island before. His wife and son had been killed in an accident when the seaplane they had been taking had crashed into the sea. He however had no qualms leaving Tarth to amuse himself from time to time. 

While his own father was busy with finalizing matters of custody and the estate, Jaime found himself taking the stairs to Brienne’s room two at a time. He knocked on her door and when he received no answer, forced it open. Her septa had told him she’d not really eaten since her father had been struck down by the accident. He finds her in bed with her two cats Roar and Pounce and her dog Wiggle surrounding her like an animal fortress. She is looking down at a collection of photographs and he approaches her slowly, softly calling her name. Her eyes, when she looks up at him were liquid pools of despair and he wonders about this poor unfortunate child who had experienced too many losses in her young life. 

“I… I found this,” she told him after sifting through a pile she’d kept by her side. "It’s our mothers when they were younger.” 

Jaime joins her in bed, takes the seat beside her, and adjusts when she curls against him. He feels a jolt when he realizes how frail she seems now, when she had always seemed so robust. He rests his hand on her shoulder, pulls her closer and looks down at the photo she is showing him. He can see his mother easily and beside her is another woman, a little taller, her hair a tawny brown, her skin milky white and dusted with freckles. They were both young and smiling and Jaime couldn’t help but smile down at them. 

“Your mother… you look like her,” Brienne says as she uses a hand to trace Joanna Lannister’s face. “I don’t look like my mother,” she whispers in a soft voice, finger moving to touch the brunette woman’s dainty features. 

No, you don’t, Jaime thinks. Things would probably have been easier if Brienne had taken after her beautiful mother, but she was too much of a Tarth, tall and blonde, plain faced. “You do have her eyes though,” he tells her. “Her eyes are beautiful.”

Jaime is surprised when his father enters the room. Brienne pulls away him to run to Tywin before Jaime could grab her and tell her to be wary, careful, no. 

“Uncle!” she says before throwing herself at Tywin and sobbing. 

Jaime is flabbergasted when his father lays a hand on the young girl’s head and pulls her close. 

“Hush now child, it’s alright,” Tywin says, voice as calm and commanding as ever. "You're safe now. We’ve come to take you to your new home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the shifting tenses, English is not my first language so I still have trouble with it from time to time and I have no beta so all mistakes are my own. I am fascinated with these two actually and so wanted to try my hand at writing a different dynamic for them. Hence this AU. Hope you enjoy this journey with me!


End file.
